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Microbiological Testing - Drinking, Swimming pools, Food
This is one of the most important aspects of water quality, since it relates directly to the health and well being of consumers. Tweed has a variety of tests that are performed routinely on drinking water, recreation waters, Swimming Pools, Bores, Spring and Waters of the environment. This ensures that the water people may consume will be safe to do so.
Indicator Bacteria
The potential for water-borne disease arises when water is polluted with faecal matter. Polluted water may contain pathogenic faecal bacteria, viruses, or other micro-organisms. It would be far too complex to try and detect all of these on a routine basis. It is therefore normal practice to look for "indicator bacteria". These are bacteria that are always excreted in large numbers in the faeces of humans and other animals, whether they are healthy or sick. Their presence indicates faecal contamination; it does not prove that water-borne disease is occurring.
Faecal Coliforms, which include Escherichia coli, are a subgroup of the total coliform group and they occur almost entirely in faeces. By contrast, other members of the coliform group can be free-living in nature and therefore their presence in water is not necessarily evidence of faecal contamination. Escherichia coli are always present in faeces, the majority of which are not pathogenic.
Enterococci, are another group of indicator bacteria. They also are faecal in origin, and while not as specific or as abundant in faecal material as faecal coliforms, they are more persistent in water than E. coli, and so may be a better indicator of the presence of certain pathogens that die off slowly (e.g. viruses).
Testing
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Test
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Type of Sample
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Total Coliforms
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Drinking Water, Swimming Pools
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Faecal Coliforms
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Drinking Water, Swimming Pools, Streams, Rivers, Lakes, Dams, Outfalls
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E. coli
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Drinking Water, Swimming Pools, Streams, Rivers, Lakes, Dams, Outfalls, Oysters
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Enterococci
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Streams, Rivers, Estuarine waters
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Pseudomonas aeruginosa
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Swimming Pools, Drinking Water
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Total Plate Count
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Drinking water, Miscellaneous
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Chemical Testing - General, ICP, FIA, IC
Tweed Laboratory Centre offers a variety of chemical testing both Classical and instrumental. The laboratory provides this analytical service to Council and also to the Ratepayers (at a cost) and other external organisations such as consultants, universities and private companies.
Water and Wastewater Chemistry
Water and Wastewater chemistry is an important aspect of processes employed by Tweed Shire Council in the treatment of water for drinking and the treatment of sewage. The liquid fraction from sewage, after treatment, can be returned to be used to water land such as Golf Courses and the solid portion used as a fertilizer after being mixed with soil and mulch.
To understand how these treatments work and how effective they may be requires that we monitor and analyse these materials during the process down to ionic level. We also need to understand their physical properties such as pH, Colour, Electrical Conductance etc.
Services
A range of services that we provide include:
- Nutrients
- Metals
- Physical testing (pH, conductivity etc)
- Oxygen demand etc.
- And More…
NATA Accreditation
This analysis requires the use of a variety of instruments and techniques. It may also require that the Laboratory have
accreditation by an authority to establish credibility.
All this said the ability to perform these tests in a reproducible and repetitive manner allows the Laboratory and the client to have faith in the results produced on a day-to-day basis. The accreditation by NATA is the final stamp on the process and procedures used.
www.nata.com.au
Tweed Shire Council employs the latest instrumentation and a number of experienced staff to achieve this level of precision and reproducibility.
Instrumentation
The Instrumentation includes:
- ICP-OES (inductively coupled Plasma optical emission spectrograph)
- GCMS (Gas chromatography Mass spectrometry)
- FIA (Flow injection Analyser)
- HPLC (High pressure liquid Chromatography)
- IC (Ion Chromatography)
- GFAAS (Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption spectrograph)
- SIE (Specific Ion Electrodes)
These instruments, combined with classical techniques such as Titrimetric, Gravimetric and general wet chemistry allows the laboratory to provide a complete service covering a large area of expertise.
Algae Testing - Blue green, Biovolume, freshwater
Blue green algae in fact all Algae can be deleterious to a water system. Tweed Laboratory prides itself on being to the fore in the identification and enumeration of algal species. The identification must be performed in a timely manner (within 24 -48 hours) along with this reporting of Biovolume is essential with Blue green algae.
What are Algae?
Free floating microscopic algae, are simple plants that grow with light and nutrients. They are natural to waterways and are part of the aquatic food chain. Various types of algae are found in Australian waters including blue-green algae, diatoms, green algae and flagellates. Blue-green algae are actually bacteria and in favourable conditions such as high temperatures and nutrients, can grow excessively (blooms) and may produce toxins which in extreme cases can be lethal. Often farm dams with algal blooms are known to cause stock losses.
Taste and Odour
Other problems that can occur from blooms are compounds produced by certain types of algae and blue-green algae that cause bad tastes and odours. A method to pre-empt toxin, taste and odour problems is by regularly examining the water through a microscope to identify any potential problem organisms and implement management strategies before they become a problem.
Tweed Laboratory Centre
Our laboratory has highly trained staff able to provide a service to identify both toxic blue-green and other nuisance algae for private landholders, council and other government agencies.
Tweed Laboratory, in-line with our commitment to develop client services, is looking to invest in a new technology to identify and quantify the toxins released by these forms of Algae. It will hopefully reduce the timeframe and costs to clients when faced with a Blue green Algal bloom that exceeds the regulatory requirements.
Acid Sulphate - Chromium Reducible
Has become a very important analysis particular to the construction industry but also has significant ramifications to the agricultural industry. This particular aspect of soil science has its heritage in the Tweed region so it is natural for the Laboratory to take a significant interest. This interest has included assisting numerous Universities with speciation analysis in the area of sulphur chemistry.
The Eastern seaboard of Australia has significant areas where the soil is classified as Acid Sulphate. This means that should it be disturbed and open to the atmosphere a significant decrease in pH due to the formation of Sulphuric acid can cause severe problems. We identify these areas by performing the Chromium Reducible Sulphur suite of analyses.
Organic - Petroleum Hydrocarbons, VOC, SVOC, Phenols and Pesticides (OC and OP)
The need to analyse reticulated water for bi products from the disinfection process led Tweed Laboratory to purchase Gas Chromatography Mass spectrometry instrumentation. The abilities of this instrumentation will soon lead to the development of other analytes: Petroleum Hydrocarbons, VOC, SVOC, Phenols and Pesticides (OC and OP).